McDonald’s, and Burger King get F on antibiotics report card

For many years, big fast-food giants such as McDonald’s and Burger King have been advertising their plans to end the use of antibiotics in their meat supply.

Recently, a report was published which says that a majority of fast food giants have been failed miserably at implementing those policies, especially in the case of beef.

McDonald’s and Burger King got a F on a new antibiotic report card report released by the nonprofit environmental advocacy group Natural Resource Defense Council, which worked with Consumer Reports and the Center for Food Safety to make this report.

Other 21 top burger chains either failed on this scale or got a D-minus.

Only two burger chains, Shake Shack and BurgerFi, received an A. Wendy’s received a D-minus while the other 20 chains failed on the test.

“Many companies have promised either to completely end or restrict the use of medically important drugs in chicken supply chains. Unfortunately, we have seen very little effort in case of beef and pork,” Lena Brook, lead researcher of the report and interim director of the food and agriculture program at the nonprofit Natural Resources Defense Council, one of the organizations involved in the research, said.

The purpose of the report is to highlight the antibiotics policies and practices implemented in the beef industry which are affecting the human health over the passage of time.

The researchers had worked for a long time to highlight this growing antibiotic crisis but they showed their disappointment on the event for finding most restaurants still following the same practices. That is especially worrisome because the beef sector is the biggest buyer of antibiotics in the U.S. It almost takes 43 percent of the sales of medically-important antibiotics for livestock.”

The report, however, says that major progress has been made over the years in the chicken category.

Last June, the parent company of Burger King and Tim Hortons announced its plan to reduce the use of antibiotics in its chicken supply. McDonalds committed the same followed by Wendy’s, KFC and Chick-fil-A. But none of those mentioned the same for their beef supplies.

“Ending the use of routine antibiotics can help to slow down the spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria and keep these critical medicines working to treat infections in humans and animals,” Brook said.